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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28042284">take my hand, wreck my plans (that's my man)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland'>Yellow_Bird_On_Richland</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Community (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort Sex, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Just the usual Jeffbritta collapsing toward each other in the wake of everyone else leaving, Post-Canon, Songfic, slight angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:42:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,360</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28042284</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything Britta had learned from her Alcoholism and American Literature course screams that inviting Jeff out for a drink ranks as a spectacularly terrible idea.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Britta Perry/Jeff Winger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>take my hand, wreck my plans (that's my man)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Evermore will probably inspire more songfics. Thank you for another gem of a pandemic album, Ms. Swift.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Everything Britta had learned from her Alcoholism and American Literature course screams that inviting Jeff out for a drink ranks as a spectacularly terrible idea. At least her worst one since wearing low-cut jeans while the Ass-Crack Bandit was on the loose.</p><p>She can't think of any reason to resist this relapse, though. There isn't really anything left between them to break after their most recent...she hesitates to even call it an engagement. It was a joke. A desperate joke made by a pair of shipwrecked people who somehow find themselves together to weather storms.</p><p>Either way, there's nothing left for her to Britta.</p><p>So screw her inhibitions. She's spent the better part of her life running away from 'em, anyway. Might as well stay consistent.</p><p>She texts Jeff.</p><p>**</p><p>Does it count as hate-fucking if you only hate yourselves and not each other? If sex is a mutually destructive, perversely enjoyable way to feel anything other than numb?</p><p>She avoids answering that question the way she dodged participating in so many classes at Greendale and buries herself in work, in going through the motions of updating her resume with...what, exactly? And, even if she can wallpaper over her lack of experience in therapy and psychology, how will she make a positive impression in an interview setting?</p><p>"It's all about the phrasing," her favorite bullshit artist slurs the next time they hook up. Or after they hook up, she supposes, technically, but it's rarely just sex for them. It's sex, bad TV, worse jokes, takeout Chinese, and all the other trappings that sometimes trick her into thinking maybe they could sustain an actual adult relationship. Other than the parts when they take their clothes off; they're talented at that, but shit at everything else. Both when they're together and apart, it seems.</p><p>"Keep talking, mister law professor," she tells him while she packs her bowl in bed. They're supposed to be keeping each other honest about not indulging in their favorite sins as much these days, since Annie and Abed aren't around to provide their unique forms of shaming, but, well. Old habits.</p><p>They play the dually doomed parts of siren and sailor in an endless infinity loop, tempting and dragging and drowning and resuscitating to revive the cycle anew. It's occasionally paused by commas and em-dashes and semicolons, but never broken by a period. And for two people with chronic fears of commitment, they've sure got a vice grip on their vices. On each other. She's half-sure they're one and the same.</p><p>"You're a bartender. You've got tons of buzzwords. Conflict resolution. Effective listening skills. Experience in a fast paced work environment. Adaptability. Flexibility."</p><p>"I've got tons of flexibility, huh?" she smirks.</p><p>Jeff, bless his heart, can't quite fuck her stupid, but he gets close to doing it, and that counts for something.</p><p>It's more of an effort than anyone else has invested in her lately.</p><p>**</p><p>They settle into a routine to make up for losing the ones they'd been gifted at Greendale. It starts during a late July heatwave, when he invites her to crash at his place for a couple days while the power's out at her garbage apartment, and from there, they pick up little pieces of what they did when they told each other they weren't dating during sophomore year. They don't sneak around, because they only have each other to hide from, and that's terrifying, so they fuck up (as usual), and briefly see other people.</p><p>There's something addicting about being able to be at your worst with someone, though, which explains why they don't actually fight about it when they're together. And July flips to August and Jeff's off at Greendale-she still slips up and calls it school-for more pre-semester meetings and it feels like last September, but they're kinda coupled up this fall.</p><p>She cracks the silence like the eggs that go in his favorite cheese omelets during one Sunday morning in early October. An ominous day to do this, Britta supposes; Jeff loathes Monday for obvious reasons and she doesn't particularly like them, either, despite possessing only a passing resemblance to a normal human's work schedule. Still, her timing is nothing if not awful-at least she'll be on brand if she breaks whatever this iteration of their friendship slash relationship slash sex life is.</p><p>"You remember the last time we were engaged?" she asks, tossing the question out as casually as possible as she pops a pair of frozen waffles into her toaster for their shared breakfast. "And you mentioned doing all the lame domestic crap that normal people do?"</p><p>"Sure," he nods as he pours orange juice into two glasses.</p><p>"Would it look something like this?"</p><p>It floats like a paper airplane, and she expects Jeff will let it nosedive into her cat hair infested carpet.</p><p>He responds quietly, at first. "I think it would. Maybe add some champagne if we were feeling fancy. Or make a beermosa. And I wouldn't say no to getting some fresh fruit to have on the side with breakfast."</p><p>His answer is more specific than she was expecting, but she can play along. "We could've gone to a farmer's market. Actually, no, I think it might be too late for them by now. I'd probably have to bribe you with sexual favors to get you to shell out money for organic produce, right?"</p><p>He snorts. "Duh doy. And by the way, there's <em>no </em>difference in taste, you're letting yourself get scammed by big grocery."</p><p>"Keep insulting the woman who'd do some of your cooking, Winger, see where that gets you," she snarks back, and she expects the game to end there-for Jeff to maybe make some comment about reconciling her feminism with stepping into the kitchen-but it doesn't.</p><p>He extends it, still under a guise of goofing around, of course. "Sunday dinner for two. Whatcha got, Perry?"</p><p>"Pulled pork in the crock pot for sandwiches. Perfect game day meal." He frowns, and she adds, "If we're gonna be standard white folks, I'm thinking we've gotta watch football."</p><p>He grins. "Smart thinking. Remind me to hide the good beer from the McAlisters before they come over. They're a little grating, I don't think they deserve anything better than seasonal Sam Adams."</p><p>Britta has time to ask herself, <em>"What the fuck is happening? What are we doing?"  </em>before she answers cheerfully, "Yes, dear." She grimaces at that honeyed pet name. "Okay, I'm done, I can never call you dear. I might puke."</p><p>"That sounded just as weird to me as it might've felt for you saying it," Jeff acknowledges, then adds, a touch uncertainly, "Um...I think it'd be like that. You know. Us being domestic and being <em>together  </em>together."</p><p>They've always approached the distance of going from whatever or wherever they are to dating-to being, as Jeff so eloquently put it, <em>together  </em>together-as a massive chasm, one that can only be jumped when they're going eighty-five and speeding blind toward a cliff.</p><p>Britta wonders, now-several years too late, in some ways, but on the other hand, better late than never-if they'd gotten it wrong. If they could slow down and walk there together.</p><p>"<em>He's taken my hand and wrecked my plans more times than I can count, and I've done the same for him. What's it gonna hurt to do it once more?"</em></p><p>She comments, as lightly as possible, "Doesn't sound awful. Seems survivable, at least."</p><p>Jeff nods as their waffles pop up. "Yeah. Think I could learn to deal with it."</p><p>She smears pats of butter on them as he grabs the maple syrup out of the fridge. "Think I could, too." They always speak in code, and she's not quite ready to give that up. That little security blanket. So she suggests, "Wanna give it a test run? Next weekend, maybe?"</p><p>He freezes for a second and accidentally drowns his waffle in syrup, and she gently rights the bottle.</p><p>"We could do that," he agrees. "A test run. Next weekend." They shake on it, laugh nervously at the formality, and kiss instead.</p><p>And maybe, just maybe, they're not quite fractured beyond repair.</p>
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